Sexual Political, Part Deux

Sexual Politics, Part Deux

Is it a violation of the Sabbath to try to stir up trouble on this stuff today? This article claims that research shows a strong correlation between intelligence in men and their tendency to place a high value on sexual fidelity. In women, however, there is a strong prejudice in favor of sexual fidelity regardless of intelligence. Does this mean women are simply capable of understanding the obvious, regardless of their brains? Do men have to reason something out that women grasp by some kind of mysterious intuition (always a popular theory)? Or is this just another of those studies where someone manages to link intelligence to a pet theory for the purpose of shedding approval of the pet theory? Another possibility, I suppose, is that the advantages of sexual fidelity are considerable more obvious even to the dimmer members of a sex that can get pregnant. The flip side would be that only the more intelligent men were likely to look beyond immediate selfish advantage.

The article makes no attempt to distinguish between male and female fidelity, and in this it echoes the problem I find with most discussions on the subject.